Canelo vs. Golovkin to take place in fall 2017

By Boxing News - 06/22/2016 - Comments

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By Eric Baldwin: Boxing fans hoping to see the mega-fight between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC heavyweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) and Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) will need to wait until the fall of 2017, because that’s when Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions are aiming towards for the fight.

Golden Boy wants the 25-year-old Canelo to have more time to build up his weight so that he’s comfortable fighting at 160 pounds against Golovkin. Further, they also want more time to build up the Canelo-Golovkin fight to make it bigger than it is right now. They feel that by September of 2017, the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight should be big enough to stage it at that time. Some boxing fans might say that Canelo is pulling a Floyd Mayweather Jr. by waiting Golovkin out until he’s old and lost his skills like Manny Pacquiao had when Mayweather finally got around to fighting him.

Golden Boy Vice President Eric Gomez met with Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler last Monday of this week to see if they could hammer out a deal for a fight this year. It was decided during that meeting that the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight would wait until next year, according to Dan Rafael. That was the decision that came from Golden Boy rather than Loeffler.

“I met with Eric on Monday and we had a good, good conversation, and the plan was they want to shoot for fall of 2017,” Loeffler said to ESPN.com. “It’s not going to happen in September of this year, so we’ll use the time to build the fight. We wanted the fight in [this past] May. It’s Gennady’s priority to make the Canelo fight as soon as possible, but Golden Boy felt next year would make the most sense on the promotional side and with the weight as well.”

It makes sense for the Canelo-Golovkin fight to take place in 2017 rather than this year, because there’s not enough time to market the fight for September 17, which is when Canelo will be fighting next on the Mexican Independence Day holiday weekend. Canelo and Golden Boy were preoccupied recently for several weeks dealing with a lawsuit from Canelo’s former promoters, and the time spent on that has taken away valuable time that could have been used for negotiating the Golovkin fight.

With the limited time left before Canelo’s fight in September, it’s better idea to have the fight moved to 2017 so that they promote the fight properly. Canelo’s weight is another issue. He needs to fill comfortable before he can fight Golovkin. He doesn’t feel comfortable now, so by next year, he should be able to fight him at 160 without a catch-weight. Canelo will be 26 by them, and will have filled out a little more.

“We’ll be happy whenever we can make the fight with Canelo,” Loeffler said. “We can’t force people to get in the ring with Gennady. Canelo wants to work to get up to 160 and we’ll try to make the best out of the situation.”

Canelo will likely fight for a world title on September 17 against WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith. Beating Smith would give Canelo a world title at 154. He would then use his next fight in May of 2017 to fight a middleweight to get ready for the Golovkin fight in September of next year. Canenlo can’t take back to back fights at 154lb, because that would give him no preparation for fighting Golovkin. He needs to face at least one middleweight without the 155lb catch-weight that he’s been using for the last two years of his career.

Golovkin and Loeffler aren’t in the position to call the shots with Canelo. The Mexican star is the 800 pound gorilla in the room right now, and Golovkin doesn’t have the cache to pressure him to take the fight. It’s better for Golovkin and Loeffler to move on and look to get the biggest fights possible while they wait for a year to elapse before meeting Canelo next year in September. Golovkin will be 35-years-old by then, and likely the same fighter he is today. He’s not going to go downhill too much in just one year.

The good news is that boxing fans now know that the Canelo-Golovkin fight won’t be taking place in 2016, so they don’t have to wait and hope. The bad news is that there’s no way of knowing for sure whether Golden Boy will make the fight next year. It’s quite possible they could keep kicking the can ahead further into the future before they finally let Canelo face Golovkin.

Loeffler is interested in matching Golovkin up against the highly ranked #2 WBA, #2 WBC Chris Eubank Jr. (22-1, 17 KOs) in September in the UK. Eubank Jr. has a fight this Saturday night against Tom Doran (17-0, 7 KOs), and if wins that fight, then a fight against Golovkin is a strong possibility. Eubank Jr. and his father Chris Eubank wants that fight, and their promoter Eddie Hearn is already in talks with Loeffler to negotiate the bout for September. It’ll likely be on pay-per-view in the UK, and it would be a stadium worthy fight.

“I’ve been talking to Eddie about Eubank Jr. and Eddie said as soon as [Saturday’s] fight is over we will see if we can move forward with that fight,” Loeffler said.

Despite Eubank Jr. not being a world champion, it would still easily be the biggest fight of Golovkin’s 12-year pro career. Eubank Jr. has a lot of fans in the UK, and it would generate a great deal of interest. Golovkin would be a huge favorite because of his punching power and experience. Eubank Jr. and his father are extremely confident of them beating Golovkin. They don’t see anything special about him other than his punching power.

Loeffler will likely look to get Golovkin back inside the ring in December depending on how tough his fight is with Eubank Jr. Loeffler wants to match Golovkin against WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders, but for that fight to happen, they would need to come up with a big money offer. That might be difficult to do because it’s not a pay-per-view worthy fight on HBO.

Saunders isn’t a big star and isn’t well known in the U.S. If Loeffler cannot get Saunders, then Golovkin would need to try and get WBA champion Daniel Jacobs to take a fight with him. That fight would need to be ordered by the World Boxing Association before it would happen though, because Jacobs and his manager Al Haymon would likely never willingly agree to fight a dangerous puncher like Golovkin.